{"id":755913,"date":"2019-01-12T10:28:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T15:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=755913"},"modified":"2019-01-12T10:28:47","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T15:28:47","slug":"an-elephants-personhood-on-trial-a-legal-case-poses-a-fundamental-question-about-animals-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=755913","title":{"rendered":"An elephant\u2019s personhood on trial: A legal case poses a fundamental question about animals\u2019 rights."},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Centuries of legal custom have reserved rights for humans and animal-welfare laws fall short of actual rights. They exempt farm animals and most lab animals, and practices that many people consider cruel, such as gestation crates for pigs, remain legal in many places.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

BRANDON KEIM:<\/strong> ‘Forty-seven years ago, the Asian elephant now known as Happy was one of seven calves captured \u2014 probably in Thailand \u2014 and sent to the United States. She spent five years at a safari park in Florida, time that in the wild would have been spent by her mother\u2019s side. Then she was moved to the Bronx Zoo in New York City. There Happy remains today, and since the death of an elephant companion in 2006, she has lived alone, her days alternating between a 1.15-acre yard and an indoor stall. For a member of a species renowned for both intelligence and sociality, the setting is far from natural…<\/em><\/p>\n

In considering Happy\u2019s circumstances and what might be done to improve them, should something more than animal-welfare laws and zoo regulations\u2014which the Bronx Zoo has not violated, but arguably are inadequate\u2014be invoked? Should Happy be considered, in legal terms, a person? Which is to say, an entity capable of possessing at least some rights historically reserved for humans alone\u2014beginning with a right to be free? Making that case is an advocacy group called the Nonhuman Rights Project. Since 2013, the group has filed lawsuits on behalf of four captive chimpanzees in New York and, in neighboring Connecticut, three elephants used in a traveling circus.<\/em><\/p>\n

They\u2019ve lost those cases, but they have persuaded judges to take them seriously, and in October petitioned a New York state court to order Happy\u2019s release. She wouldn\u2019t be returned to the wild, but would be transferred to a sanctuary in California with more space and the company of other elephants. The hearing took place earlier this month, and while no decision was reached\u2014the case will likely be moved to a court within the Bronx Zoo\u2019s jurisdiction\u2014it was still a unique moment to reflect on the status of animals and the law…<\/em><\/p>\n

Until recently, the idea of elephant personhood would have struck legal observers as a joke. Just a few decades ago, most states still treated animal cruelty as a misdemeanor, like public intoxication or driving without insurance. But an increasing number of Americans take animal well-being seriously: A 2015 Gallup poll found that a majority \u201care very or somewhat concerned\u201d about animal mistreatment. The legal system has changed in turn. Every state now considers animal cruelty a felony, and laws such as California\u2019s recently passed Proposition 12, which improves living standards for farm animals, are becoming commonplace.<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, these laws have blind spots and inconsistencies. The federal Animal Welfare Act exempts farm animals and most lab animals; the Humane Slaughter Act omits poultry. State laws are an inconsistently enforced patchwork, and practices that many people consider cruel\u2014such as gestation crates for pigs\u2014remain legal in many places. Animal-welfare laws fall short of actual rights\u2014and centuries of legal custom have reserved rights for humans. \u201cA thick and impenetrable legal wall has separated all human from all nonhuman animals,\u201d writes Steven Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project\u2019s founder and lead attorney, in his book Rattling the Cage. To help Happy breach it, Wise invokes both scientific research and legal principle’.<\/em> SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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